


The First Meeting

by kuchiki977



Series: A High-Maintenance Servant But a Loyal Accomplice All the Same [1]
Category: Code Geass, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: C.C. is Saber, F/M, Gen, Master!Lelouch, Master!Schneizel, Servant!C.C., fate au, shota!Lelouch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 02:36:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2906072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuchiki977/pseuds/kuchiki977
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CluClu Fate AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first fan fiction and I love both of these fandoms very much so I decided to put them together. I wrote this as a final paper for one of my classes but I was pretty pleased with it and so I am sharing it for your viewing pleasure. Be gentle with any commentary please! Constructive criticism is welcome though!

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Silence greets him.

He had thought he was rather kind and patient when he informed the trespasser of their blunder. But the woman continued to lean on the window sill and stare out the window without a care in the world. She was dressed in an archaic-looking navy gown and her spring green hair was tied into a knot and wrapped with a matching blue ribbon. Wearing a costume like that, she was probably an eccentric noble’s daughter so he decided to try the patient approach again. Father wouldn’t appreciate a conflict that could have easily been avoided after all. Besides, she simply might not have heard him.

“Who are you and why are you in the private corridor of the palace?” he said with a bit more authority. Her expression was blank and showed no signs of even noticing he was there. She seemed somewhat unapproachable but he was quickly losing his patience. The woman didn’t even have the decency to look in his direction!

“Are you dea-”

“Child, don’t you have somewhere to be?” she finally replied.

“Child?! I beg your pardon! How dare you address the 17th prince of the Britannian Imperial family in such a way in his own home! I deserve respect!” he fired back at her. Her insolence on top of her interruption were not improving his mood.

She replied, “Is that so?” in an entirely too nonchalant manner. She seemed less than impressed with his status and even less apologetic. Lelouch is very close to laying into this disrespectful woman when Schneizel interrupts him.

“Ah, Lelouch, where is Nunally?”

“Excuse me, I was in the middle of scolding-” Lelouch looked to the rude interrupter, expecting to find some maid or guard but was surprised to find his older brother.

“Oh? Was I interrupting something?”

Before he even had the chance to reply, the woman readily turned to face the older man and cut in, “No, we’re done here.” Schneizel smiled particularly warmly at the woman though her expression didn’t soften to match. It was odd enough that the woman had a distinct lack of respect towards two members of the royal family, but her unchanging expression and monotonous tone were even more strange. Schneizel seemed to know her though.

“Big brother Schneizel, who is this woman?” He leveled a glare at her but she continued to pretend he wasn’t there.

“Hm? Oh she’s a…friend of mine.”

“Well, your friend is rather disrespectful.”

The older royal chuckled, “I’m sure she meant no harm.” Lelouch begged to differ but he made no further comments on the subject since it seemed he was not going to be told the truth. Attempting to mask his frustration, he answered his older brother’s original question, “Nunally is in the middle of her lessons and I was just looking for you but then I came upon this…woman…” He had turned to look at the person he was addressing, as he refused to stoop to her level of impoliteness, but had trailed off at what he found. Or rather what he didn’t. She was gone.

“Did you want to play chess?” But Lelouch was no longer listening. He whipped his head left and right looking down the hallway for the woman but she was nowhere to be seen. How could she have possibly gotten out of sight in so little time? Not to mention that there were only long stretches of hallways on either side of where they had been talking! Strangest of all, Schneizel didn’t seem surprised at all.

“Where did she-”

“Lelouch.” A gloved hand landed on his shoulder and his thoughts fogged a bit. What had he been looking for again? Ah, that’s right, that woman. Why though? It didn’t seem that important…or was it? Before his thoughts could get much further, Schneizel calmly asked again, “How about a game of chess?”

Slightly more alert, he nearly shouted, “I’m going to win this time!” His brother chuckled while herding him towards the common room. Six crushing defeats and a dinner later, he would wonder how he hadn’t noticed Schneizel’s approach in the hallway at all. 

* * *

 

Lately, Lelouch hasn’t been sleeping very well. He has always been a light sleeper but for some reason he is waking up more frequently in the middle of the night. Normally, he would just lay in bed and wait to drift back to sleep but a loud crash roused him to full alertness. He thought about just writing it off as nothing but then it was followed by a series of crashes. Perhaps the guards were just moving some large containers and were being particularly clumsy about it? He should go tell them to keep it down.

_He followed the crashes down the stairs and to the northern courtyard. That particular courtyard contained the imperial cemetery so it would not be outside the realm of possibility to be transporting such things in the dead of night he supposed._

_An eerie silence pervaded for a few moments. Unsettled, Lelouch began to head back to his room. He assumed the grave keepers had finished their business but suddenly a booming roar echoed down the corridor. It was so powerful, he had to cover his ears and several windows creaked from the force of it. He may have been imagining it but he swore he felt a gust of wind from it too!_

_He waited what felt like an hour but no one seemed to have been woken up by the commotion, as no one had come out to investigate. Not even any guards. His curiosity got the best of him, and he went to investigate the source of the animalistic sound._

_He walked down a few hallways and took a couple turns as he followed the commotion. Unsurprisingly, the ruckus led him to a door leading outside. Bright flashes of light and the grating of weapons greeted him upon his exit. He saw that horrid green haired woman and…he wasn’t even sure what it was._

_The creature stood on two legs and seemed humanoid in shape but he had never seen a human quite so large. The man, if you could call it that, was at least 10 feet tall and his muscles were big enough that he was sure the man could crush Lelouch’s skull as easily as if it was paper. Needless to say, he was frightened just looking at it._

_That woman, on the other hand, was now clad in armor. Though it didn’t seem very efficient considering that it only protected her torso and legs. She appeared to be a knight of some sort and the strange glow she had added to his initial thought that she had an ethereal atmosphere._

_Her graceful slashes and parries made the barbaric axe her opponent swung around seem even more uncivilized. He wondered how she managed to look elegant while fighting a monster that swung an axe the size of a small tree. The female knight was fairing far better than he would have thought with such an apparent difference in heights, and presumed difference in strength. Despite her small stature, not only was she able to block the leviathan’s slashes, she countered with her own and put him on the defensive._

_The most intriguing part by far, was her invisible sword. Well, he believed it was a sword based on the way she was using it and the bit of a shape he could discern from the unearthly refraction of light she wielded._

_The battle was nothing like he had ever seen before and like most ten-year olds would be prone to do in such a situation, he moved forward to get a better look. Unfortunately, one of his many siblings had seemingly left one of their toys lying about and he accidentally kicked it with his foot. The scraping sound it made on the gravel patio he was standing on didn’t seem to be very loud in his opinion but when he looked up to double check, the woman had spotted him._

_The creature took advantage of the distraction and swiftly slashed at her abdomen with his axe and the force behind the hit sent her spiraling through a few gravestones and skidding along the ground. Before she could right herself, she crashed into his great grandfather’s mausoleum._

_She wasn’t the only one that had noticed him, however._ _Once the barbarian lost sight of the knight in the plume of smoke from her landing, he turned his attention to Lelouch._

_Lelouch had barely even widened his eyes in shock when the creature seemingly materialized in front of him. He didn’t even have the time to question how it was scientifically possible that a creature of such mass was able to move at such a speed. Frozen in fear, all he could do was watch as the monster lifted his axe high into the air and brought it down on him. He closed his eyes and waited for the jagged blade to make contact but the pain never came. Perhaps the blow had killed him instantly? He slowly opened his eyes and the sight that greeted him was the woman’s back to him once again. She had somehow picked herself up from what should have been a fatal blow and rushed to his aid in time to stop the monster’s weapon with her own._

_Then she attempted to stab the monster but it leapt backward with amazing agility. The knight drew her sword back and she seemed poised to try attacking again but shockingly enough, the monster began to disappear._

_“Master has called me back, so we will have to call it a draw here. That was quite the battle, Saber. I look forward to crossing swords with you again,” he said before he completely faded from view. Now that the threat had seemingly departed, “Saber” let loose a tired sigh and began to slump forward. She had her back to him but he could tell she was hyperventilating. She fell face first and only now did he notice how much she had bled. Most of her previously navy skirt was dyed scarlet and if that wasn’t disturbing enough, she seemed to have lost a chunk of her abdomen._

Lelouch can’t remember if he screamed or tried to help her after that. The next thing he knew, he woke up in his bed to Nunally jumping on it. His confusion took precedence over his usual attentiveness to his sister but thankfully Nunally didn’t seem to notice. The morning began as it usually did despite last night’s events and Nunally didn’t seem to have noticed the battle that took place just outside her window. He quickly wrote the “memory” off as a dream. He probably never even got out of bed!

Once he composed himself enough, he responded to Nunally’s pleas for him to play with her, “Of course we can play in the courtyard.”

Her bright smile widened, “Really?! Thank you big brother!”

He returned her smile and asked, “Which courtyard do you want to play in?”

“The norther courtyard!” Lelouch paled, but Nunally continued to babble on about something he was sure was precious without noticing the change in her brother’s demeanor. His sister was far too adorable to refuse though, so he agreed.

When he got out there, he was shocked to see that the courtyard he half-expected to be destroyed was fine. The kicked up dirt and the craters from the unnatural skirmish seemed even more dreamlike now. The mausoleum even looked untouched despite the fact that it should have a large hole in one wall! Now he was nearly certain last night was a dream.

Nunally wanted to play hide and seek, so he volunteered to be the seeker first. After counting to thirty, he began to search for her. He checked behind pillars and benches but she was nowhere to be found. He parted bushes looking for his sister’s pink dress or one of the ribbons holding her hair in twin tails, but found nothing. Resigned to the fact that she was not actually in the bushes, he began to make his way to another potential hiding spot. A crackling sound from below caught his attention. He looked down, expecting a broken toy or something, but instead he found a dry pool of blood.

He let loose a scream upon realizing his discovery and fell back on his bottom. The bush moved back into place and covered the blood but he was still staring at the bush. The noise must have worried Nunally because she came out of hiding to investigate. He refused to tell her what happened or let her see it. He picked himself up, composed himself, and walked Nunally back inside to play a different game.

* * *

 

Just a few days after the hide and seek incident, he saw “Saber” again. She was sleeping in a chair outside of a conference room in the administration wing of the palace. She was still wearing her battle gown but she didn’t seem injured in the least. Curiosity sparked, he made his way over to the chair. He still wasn’t sure what was reality and what was a dream but that blood had seemed very real.

Upon closer inspection, she wasn’t even sporting any bandages. Before he realized what he was doing, he reached out to touch her abdomen. Lelouch checked for any missing chunks out of morbid curiosity, but she wasn’t missing anything. He touched her hand and found that her skin was cool. He couldn’t find her pulse on her wrist so he tried her neck. He felt a pulse and was momentarily relieved. But then he noticed something. There appeared to be a smudge of blood on her forehead. He never would have noticed it if her slouching position hadn’t moved some of her bangs to the side.

Lelouch reached up to wipe it off but upon contact with the mark, a series of images flashed before his eyes. Scenes of fire and war and scenes of sunshine and happiness alternated at an alarming speed. It seemed as if multiple movie reels were spliced together and all competing for the opportunity to flash in front of him. There was a chilling scene of the girl being burned at the stake and a few flashes later it showed her being praised by an army of knights.

He was fairly sure he might go insane if he saw any more so he took back his hand. He could feel eyes on him now though. “What are you doing?” Her monotonous voice startles him and he does his best to restrain the urge to jump. With little success, he grudgingly admits. He raises his eyes to meet her golden gaze. Her eyes betray none of her emotions and he struggles to find some sort of excuse for his behavior.

He changed the subject, “Why aren’t you injured?” She says nothing but her eyes harden. He’s beginning to feel uncomfortable so he backpedals and tells her the truth, “I came to see if you were okay.” Her expression doesn’t change, but for some reason, he can tell that she is doubting him. Feeling compelled to defend himself, Lelouch exclaims, “What’s wrong with caring about someone?!”

She finally answers, “You don’t even know me. Why would you be concerned over my well-being?”

“Do I have to have a reason?”

“Yes.” He desperately doesn’t want to tell such a rude woman that he is grateful to her for saving him, but she is giving him little choice. He backs up from the chair, takes a few deep breaths, and looks away from her. He wishes the last of his pride well and says, “Thank you.” Silence. Did she forget? “You saved me from that…man the other day.” More silence. Maybe some praise would help, “You possess a lot of talent and…” He peters off when there is still no response from the woman. Beginning to get frustrated that she doesn’t even show interest when Lelouch Vi Britannia lowers his head, he whips his head towards her.

She actually seems genuinely shocked by his grudging gratitude. It is a welcome surprise. He prefers it to the haughty answer he had been expecting. It seems she is full of surprises today because a heartfelt smile slowly stretches across her face. Her eyes even crinkle in joy. It’s a very subtle smile but he has the feeling that she doesn’t often smile to begin with. He could picture a smirk but not an actual smile.

Her smile makes her look radiant. He feels incredibly corny for thinking so, but it’s true. Her golden eyes and spring green tresses look less malevolent and more calming when she smiles. Her pale skin seems fragile rather than off-putting. Lelouch doesn’t know why, but he suddenly feels his face warm quite a bit and he is positive he is blushing.

She notices and her smile widens even more. He looks away to save some semblance of pride, so he doesn’t notice when she begins to lean toward him. Her arms encircle his lanky preteen frame and it takes him a moment to believe that she is actually hugging him. Lelouch’s blush must strengthen at least tenfold. He barely manages to stutters out, “W-w-what a-are y-you doing?!”

He barely hears her when she nearly whispers, “I don’t often get thanked so indulge me for a bit won’t you?” Now she is acting more in character but he doesn’t push her away. He doesn’t often get hugged and even then, hugs from Nunally don’t last as long and don’t give him such a comforting feeling. Don’t get him wrong, he loves his little sister to bits and would do anything for her, but it was a nice change to be protected rather than be the protector. Her chin rested on his head and she had pulled him to rest his head on her chest. Her arms wrapped around him and his arms hung limply at his sides. Just as he was getting used to the embrace, her unexpected warmth retreats. He would never admit it to her, but he wished she hadn’t stopped so soon.

She must have somehow sensed this, considering the smirk she now wore. However, it doesn’t irritate him as much as it usually would. The sharp edge to it was gone. Unsurprisingly, she effectively ruins the moment when she pats his head in a patronizing manner. Indignant, he slaps her hand away and she only laughs. His blush of embarrassment comes back full force and she teases him, “Oh, how precious. You’re blushing~.”

“S-shut up!” Lelouch doesn’t appreciate her mocking tone any more than her antics, and proceeds to cross his arms in what he hopes is an intimidating manner. The effect would probably be stronger if he wasn’t still a blushing, stuttering mess.

She leans back in her chair and for the first time, he notices that her hair isn’t in her customary ribbon-tied knot. Her green locks are so long that he’s fairly certain they reach past her waist. Perhaps even to her knees. She casually twirls a lock on her finger and she seems to be patiently waiting for a question he didn’t even fully put into words yet. Flustered, he blurts out, “Why is your hair down?”

Not missing a beat she says, “Do you prefer it tied up?”

Aghast that she would insinuate he has an interest in her, he replies “As if! It looks like a ragged mess!” That couldn’t have been farther from the truth and he knows it but she cornered him! Instead of getting mad like he assumed any other woman would have, she cackled. It reminded him of a witch and he told her so. She continued to cackle, however. Desperate to change the subject, he racked his brain for something to make her stop laughing at him. Then he noticed it.

He noticed that what he had thought was blood on her forehead was actually a mark. It had a defined shape. It kind of looked like a bird in the distance. Perhaps a tattoo? “Why do you have a tattoo?” he asks, and it must have been the worst possible thing to say because the smile on her face quickly dropped to a thin line and the open expression she had had faded to indifference. Now though, it seemed a bit more melancholy. He had gotten her to stop laughing but now he misses it.

“Who knows?” It’s an evasive answer but it’s better than the silence he thought he would get. It’s too late to backpedal but he tries to come up with some sort of excuse for such a callous question. He can usually banter with the best of them but his extraordinary linguistic skills fail him around her for some reason—

“Saber, are you ready to go back?”

“Big brother Schneizel!” The older royal acknowledges him with a tight smile and turned his attention back to _Saber_. She promptly got up and Schneizel began to walk away. The woman went to follow but he knew he had to say something to make up for wiping the smile off her face! He was drawing at straws when it hits him. He knew just the thing! She had only gotten a few steps before he grabbed her wrist. She paused to look back at him. “C.C.! I’ll bring you a new ribbon, since you can’t seem to find your old one,” he said louder than was probably necessary. She had never said such a thing and he didn’t know why he phrased it like that, but he had a feeling that presents were just as foreign as gratitude to the girl. Her eyes widened and she said nothing. Fine then, he would reassure her. “You have my word,” he assured and stuck his hand out for a handshake. His father, Emperor Charles, always shook hands when making agreements so he assumed that a handshake would show just how serious he was.

A small piece of the previous smile was back. “All right,” she said as she took his hand into hers. He had expected rough callouses from handling a sword but her hand was soft. It was a bit cool but not unpleasantly so. A cough from Schneizel cut through the atmosphere like a machete. She immediately released his hand as if he had burned her. Lelouch turned to look at his sibling but a thinly veiled glare greeted him. Schneizel had never glared at him before and he didn’t think his brother was even capable of it to be honest. Schneizel took advantage of his befuddlement and pressed a palm to C.C.’s lower back. He steered her the other way all while keeping his gaze on Lelouch. The pair began walking down the hall and were nearly out of sight when it hit him. He was in the administration wing because he was supposed to ask Schneizel a question for his sister, Cornelia, but he didn’t seem in much of an amicable mood.

Now that he thinks about it, Schneizel had just come out from the Emperor’s throne room. Perhaps their father had scolded him? But why would he have done that? Schneizel has never been less than perfect the entire time he has known him but to be summoned to father’s chambers was only for unruly children. Strange indeed.

Family matters aside, Lelouch had to find a ribbon for C.C. Stranger still, he never even stopped to think about how he suddenly knew her name when she had never actually been addressed as anything but Saber in front of him nor had she told him.

* * *

The entire Britannian royal family was celebrating Euphemia’s 10th birthday in the expansive field surrounding the original Britannian castle. The current palace was less than three miles away but Euphemia hadn’t wanted to make a fuss over her birthday and wanted to keep it as simple as her mother would allow. Simple, to Euphemia’s mother, seemed to entail a stuffy lakeside party, complete with hors d’oeuvres that probably cost more than a middle class house.

While the adults were idly trading gossip, the children were playing. Well, Lelouch had mostly been hovering over Nunally to make sure she didn’t hurt herself but then his half sisters decided to exclude him to talk about some such nonsense that “a boy wouldn’t understand.” They even took Nunally away with them. Lelouch harrumphed but he wouldn’t press the issue. The last time he had argued with Carine she had given him bruises that lasted for days.

Lelouch couldn’t find Schneizel anywhere so he couldn’t challenge him to a chess match and his other half-siblings were either complete strangers or people he would rather not associate with anyway. With the girls excluding him, he had nothing to do. Out of options, he walked down to the edge of the lake to skip some rocks. He skipped a couple before he noticed a figure sitting in the water. He couldn’t see the figure very well and throwing rocks had quickly gotten dull, so he approached the figure for a better look.

The person was sitting at the bottom of a cliff overlooking the lake. The tree atop the cliff provided just enough shade that he was only able to make out any distinguishable characteristics when he was a little over ten feet away from the person. The person had… long, green hair! Suddenly full of energy, he got as close as he could to the water’s edge without getting in. Euphemia’s mother would skin him alive if he got his clothes dirty at the party. He didn’t know how his cousin dealt with having a mother that rivaled the emperor himself in intensity, but he applauded her effort to soldier on.

“C.C.! C.C. is that you?” he called. The figure didn’t even move. Their head was titled down and faced away from him. Dirty clothing be damned, he walked into the water towards the stranger. (Luckily, the person’s position was on the side of the cliff that totally eclipsed their existence from the party so he would have some cover and time to come up with an excuse before he was discovered in his ruined clothing.)

Lelouch walked around to face the figure and it turned out that it was C.C. She was also naked. Startled, he fell back into the shallow water and covered his eyes. He made an inhuman screech before demanding that she put some clothes on. He slowly peeked in between his fingers to see if she had begun to obey but she hadn’t moved a muscle. He couldn’t see her face. Assuming that she was pranking him or something, he called out to her again, “C.C. this isn’t funny anymore.”

Still nothing.

“C.C!”

The silence stretched on. He was beginning to lose patience. He reached out to shake her shoulder, taking great pains to keep his eyes above the neck, and felt no resistance when shaking her. Concerned, he stooped in front of her and saw that not only was her expression blank, but so were her eyes. She was even crying. He couldn’t believe that someone who was nearly cleaved in half without even grunting and usually didn’t even show emotions, was openly crying where she could be seen by anyone.

“C.C?” he surprised himself with how softly he spoke. She didn’t even seem to notice he was there. He tried to keep a strictly clinical point of view when he gave her a once over for injuries, and the only thing he found was the scar on the left…side of her chest. It was shaped like a trident and seemed like it had been particularly painful to receive. One of her hands was resting on it while the other lay next to her bent legs. Her expression seemed dead and it bothered him that he didn’t know why.

Suddenly, he remembered that he had the ribbon he promised her. (He had been carrying it around everyday since the last time he saw her. He even spent 3 hours trying to decide on the perfect one.) He retrieved it and showed her the violet ribbon he had picked out for her, out of the millions the ladies of the palace seemed to own.

She still had nothing to say so he decided to fill the silence until she felt ready to talk, “I know your gown is navy blue but I personally think you would look better in dark purple.” The ribbon was a soft silk cloth and it was about half the length of his arm. Nunally had said it was very pretty in between badgering him for information about who it was for. He had wanted to make C.C. smile again but it seemed that it would be rather tough this time. C.C. looked as if her soul had died. He might even venture to say lonely. He rambled on about this and that but she never looked up and never moved. Nunally was easy to please and he had only ever comforted her before so he didn’t know how to handle someone as enigmatic as C.C.

He was running out of options but he didn’t want to give up. So he relented and decided to resort to his final option. He was going to hug her. He took off his suit jacket and wrapped it around her in an effort to make the situation a little less embarrassing. He took a couple deep breaths and mentally prepared himself before quickly catching her in his arms. He kept his eyes clenched shut and his hold was probably too tight but she would have to forgive him since it wasn’t something he did often.

It took him a few minutes to relax into the embrace but when he did, he found that he was enjoying it. C.C., however, hadn’t moved a bit. He could feel her tears dampening his shoulder but he refused to give up just yet.

What felt like an hour passed and he was beginning to lose hope. He had just started to loosen his hold when he felt a slight pressure on his back. He looked to see what it was and to his relief, C.C. was returning his hug. He tightened his hold on her and smiled into her shoulder.

“Thank you, Lelouch.” It was the first time she had addressed him by name and it made him inexplicably glad. He reluctantly pulled back to present her with his gift, when he noticed she was still crying.

“C.C., what’s wrong?” A long pause passed and he patiently waited for her to voice her troubles.

Finally, she told him, “I lost someone very important to me today.”

Shocked, he asked, “Who? Did they die?”

“He was…my very first friend. I…I killed him.” The tears were flowing stronger now as she continued, “He hated me so much that he…he went insane and I… had to… kill him.” Her voice had gotten smaller and cracked more and more as the sentence went on. By the end of it, she looked as if her own words had physically hurt her.

He didn’t understand what she meant but he had a feeling it wasn’t even her fault. He told her so and she looked so vulnerable that he could hardly believe that this was the same woman that leveled a stare cold enough to bring about another ice age at him just months ago. He wouldn’t have had much trouble believing that woman was capable of horrible things but now that he knows her better, he likes to think C.C. is kind and gentle. Aggravating and condescending, definitely, but not malicious as he had once thought. He couldn’t really picture her killing someone. She looked like she honestly wanted to believe his words but couldn’t bring herself to do it.

He felt angry on her behalf and wished he could make her believe that it wasn’t her fault but he didn’t know what to say since he didn’t have all of the details. He didn’t want to say empty words any more than she wanted to hear them. What could have possibly happened to make someone like C.C. openly weep and seek comfort?

Since he couldn’t think of anything else to do or say, he just hugged her and hoped that was enough comfort. She clung to him and he could feel every sob that racked her body. They stayed like that for what felt like hours. He didn’t move until his sister began calling for him so they could go home and even then he reluctantly pulled away. She gave him a broken smile and he wished he could be of more help. He tied the ribbon in her hair before he quietly bid her farewell. He took one last look at her before he rounded the cliff. Sensing his gaze, she turned and gave him a small smile. He returned the gesture with one of his own and went on his way. Despite the solemn atmosphere and grim circumstances, he felt as if he had a new understanding of C.C. He was already thinking of new ways to make her smile.

* * *

 

Unfortunately, the Holy Grail War would end soon after and nearly a decade would pass before he saw her again. He and his sister would be sent to Japan and face many hardships. His sister would be blinded and confined to a wheelchair. He would realize just how much he wants to change the world and recognize how little power he has to do it. He would forsake Lelouch vi Britannia and become Lelouch Lamperouge.

When he finally does reunite with her, he has forgotten all about her because like all outsiders that get involved in the magical war, his memories would be rewritten. She would remember him very well however, and puzzle him with guilty looks every now and then. After all, it was his own choice to become a Master, was it not?


End file.
